Awards - 15th International Architecture Exhibition

The international Jury of the 15th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia composed of Hashim Sarkis (President of the Jury, Lebanon, USA), Pippo Ciorra (Italy), Sergio Fajardo (Colombia), Marisa Moreira Salles (Brazil), and Karen Stein (USA) has decided to confer the awards as follows:

Golden Lion for Best National Participation:

Spain
Unfinished

Commissioner: Iñaqui Carnicero + Carlos Quintans
Curator: Carnicero + Quintans
Exhibitor: Contemporary Spanish Architecture
Venue: Giardini

Motivation: "… for a concisely curated selection of emerging architects whose work shows how creativity and commitment can transcend material constraints."

Two special mentions - National Participations:

Japan
en : art of nexus

Commissioner: The Japan Foundation.
Curator: Yoshiyuki Yamana.
Exhibitor: Seiichi Hishikawa, mnm (Mio Tsuneyama), Osamu Nishida+Erika Nakagawa(Osamu Nishida, Erika Nakagawa, Naruse Inokuma Architects (Jun Inokuma, Yuri Naruse), Naka Architects’ Studio (Toshiharu Naka, Yuri Uno), Nousaku Architects (Fuminori Nousaku, Junpei Nousaku), miCo. (Mizuki Imamura, Isao Shinohara), Levi Architecture (Jun Nakagawa), Shingo Masuda+Katsuhisa Otsubo Architects (Shingo Masuda, Katsuhisa Otsubo), Koji Aoki Architects (Koji Aoki), 403architecture [dajiba] (Takuma Tsuji, Takeshi Hashimoto, Toru Yada), BUS (Satoru Ito, Kosuke Bando, Issei Suma), dot architects (Toshikatsu Ienari, Takeshi Shakushiro, Wataru Doi).
Venue: Giardini

Motivation: "… for bringing the poetry of compactness to alternative forms of collective living in a dense urban setting."

Peru
Our Amazon Frontline

Commissioner: José Orrego.
Curators: Sandra Barclay and Jean Pierre Crousse.
Exhibitors: Elizabeth Añaños; Sebastián Cillóniz; Claudia Flores; Jose Luis Villanueva; Militza Carrillo, Gino Fernández; Miguel Chávez, Alvaro Echevarría, Alfonso Orbegoso; Karel van Oordt, Daizuke Izumi, Alejandro Torero; Carlos Tamayo; Luis Miguel Hadzich.
Venue: Arsenale, Sale d’Armi

Motivation: "… for bringing architecture to a remote corner of the world, making it both a venue for learning as well as a means for preserving the culture of the Amazon."

Golden Lion for the Best Participant
in the International Exhibition Reporting from the Front:

Gabinete de Arquitectura
(Solano Benítez, Gloria Cabral, Solanito Benítez - Paraguay)
Venue: Central Pavilion - Giardini

Motivation: "… for harnessing simple materials, structural ingenuity and unskilled labour to bring architecture to underserved communities."

Silver Lion for a promising young participant
in the International Exhibition Reporting from the Front:

NLÉ
(Kunlé Adeyemi - The Netherlands)
Venue: Gaggiandre - Arsenale

Motivation: "… for a powerful demonstration, be it in Lagos or in Venice, that architecture, at once iconic and pragmatic, can amplify the importance of education."

Special mention
to the following participant in the International Exhibition Reporting from the Front:

Maria Giuseppina Grasso Cannizzo
Venue: Central Pavilion - Giardini

Motivation: "… for her perseverance in using the rigours of her discipline to elevate the everyday into timeless works of architecture."

Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement

Paulo Mendes da Rocha (Brazil)

Amongst other points, the motivations note that "the most striking attribute of his architecture is its Timelessness. Many decades after being built, each of his projects have resisted the test of time, both stylistically and physically. This astonishing consistency may be the consequence of his ideological integrity and his structural genius. He is a nonconformist challenger and simultaneously a passionate realist. His fields of interest are beyond architecture, in political, social, geographical, historical and technical realms. The role model he played for many generations of architects in Brazil, Latin America and everywhere is that of a person able to join shared and collective efforts as well as someone able to attract others to the cause of a better built environment."

+ more information